O'Connor Burger 3
Up until a few days ago, he’d been developing an app; suddenly switching to running a food truck was not exactly easy.
Still, Shawn had experience working in his father’s pub, and Fernando had also worked part-time in restaurants back in school.
Their awkwardness lasted only a moment.
Before long, the two of them had settled into a rhythm and were working together smoothly.
After all their practice, they drove the food truck out and opened for business, but sales were poor.
They had been told that the head of Continue Capital would support a franchise rollout, but that only mattered if the business was already doing well.
At the level they were selling now, there was no point in taking investment if the numbers made it obvious the venture wasn’t going to work.
“Maybe the price is too high?”
At Shawn’s words, Fernando nodded.
“It is expensive, for a food-truck burger, that’s for sure.”
A cheap McDonald’s combo was five dollars. An O'Connor Burger set, on the other hand, cost a full fifteen. Nearly three times as much.
There were plenty of people who looked only at the price and walked away, muttering about how ridiculous it was.
“But didn’t it sell well in New York?”
“That was a pub.”
A pub, where people sat down and ate at their own pace, could get away with charging a little more. A food truck serving office workers, though, had no choice but to be far more sensitive to price.
“Should we drop it by two dollars?”
Fernando thought it over for a long moment, then shook his head.
“No. It’s easy to lower a price, but hard to raise it again. And if we use cheaper bread and patties, then there’s nothing that sets us apart from any other burger. O'Connor Burger should stay a premium burger.”
Besides, if they cut the price carelessly, it might leave behind the image of something cheap.
If this had just been a short-term event, then profit margins wouldn’t matter much either way. But if they were serious about franchising, then they had to manage the brand image carefully from the very beginning.
More than anything else…
“The O'Connor Burger I ate was definitely worth the money. This is only the start, so let’s wait and see.”
Fortunately, after a few days, customers slowly began to increase.
Some people even came back every day, saying the burgers were delicious.
It had been a week since the food truck opened.
Shawn and Fernando drove the truck out again and got ready for another day of business.
“It’s cold today. Do you think customers will show up?”
“I just hope we sell through all the ingredients we prepared.”
“That’d be a huge win.”
“Let’s do our best today too!”
Rounding the corner, they saw a crowd packed into the open lot where the truck parked. The line was so long they couldn’t even see the end of it.
“What’s going on? Did some popular food truck come today?”
“Looks like it. There are tons of people.”
“Lucky them. Just how good does a place have to be for this kind of line…?”
“Let’s buy some later too.”
Fernando pulled into the designated spot.
Then the crowd erupted.
“They’re here!”
“Finally!”
“It’s the O'Connor Burger truck!”
“Waaah!”
The reaction took both of them completely by surprise.
“W-wait a second. Were these people waiting for us?”
Shawn hurried down and opened the side hatch of the truck.
“Are you selling right away?”
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Uh, we’ll get everything ready as fast as we can. Please wait just a moment.”
As soon as sales started, the people at the front of the line shoved money forward and shouted over one another.
“Five O'Connor Burgers to go!”
“Twelve sets to go!”
“Make that twenty-seven to go!”
That sparked an immediate wave of protest from those behind them.
“Hey, if you buy that many up front, what are the rest of us supposed to do?”
“Have you people no shame?”
“One or two per person, max!”
“I’ve been waiting here since seven in the morning.”
“Come on, don’t push!”
Inside the cramped food truck, Shawn and Fernando were thrown into a frenzy, grilling patties and buns and assembling burgers as fast as they could.
When it became clear they couldn’t keep up, Fernando changed the sales policy on the spot.
“From now on, we’ll only sell two per person!”
Even so, the line didn’t shrink. It kept growing.
What is this? It’s terrifying.
Those who managed to buy a burger were too busy taking photos and videos to eat right away.
Less than two hours after opening, they had sold out of everything.
“We’re sorry, but today’s service ends here.”
The people in line groaned in disbelief.
“No way!”
“When are you coming back?”
“Where will you be selling tomorrow?”
Fernando told them, “Please check the Blue Wagon app for our business hours and locations.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Silicon Valley had been swept by an unexpected hamburger craze.
Burgers were practically an American soul food.
Chairman Aaron White, one of the five richest men in the United States, ate McMuffins at McDonald’s every morning, and one president had even eaten a burger with a fork and knife—only to face a storm of public criticism.
A hamburger was something you were supposed to eat with your hands.
That was how deep Americans’ attachment to burgers ran, and they reacted sensitively even to the smallest difference in taste.
When people thought of hamburgers, they usually thought of cheap fast food for grabbing a quick meal. For a while, after rumors spread about how unhealthy they were, burgers were even blamed as a leading cause of obesity.
But O'Connor Burger was the exact opposite.
It sold freshly baked potato buns, thick meat patties, crisp vegetables, and scrambled eggs. Instead of cola, it came with freshly squeezed juice made from California oranges.
As long as it was seen as a healthy premium burger rather than fast food, the high price wouldn’t matter much.
I checked public reaction online.
I had worried that something might have changed because of me and that O'Connor Burger might fail to take off, but fortunately, that fear had been unfounded.
Come to think of it, back in the first round, the burger hadn’t become a hit because of publicity. The publicity had happened because the burger was good.
In the past, it took a long time for rumors to spread.
Now, it moved at the speed of light.
On platforms like ATube and TockTik, posting one’s impressions after eating O'Connor Burger had spread like a trend. The psychology was simple: when something became popular, people wanted to try it.
People were posting photos and videos of O'Connor Burger in real time, and those posts were filling up with comments.
But in a narrow food truck, there was always a limit to how much two people could sell in a day. There was also a limit to the ingredients being shipped in from home.
So they kept closing up after only an hour or two of business.
Because it was so hard to get one, the people who managed to buy a burger started tossing out all kinds of jokes and memes, which only made everyone who missed out want it even more.
Was this some kind of hunger marketing?
And then there was Shawn O'Connor’s story, which also drew attention.
(Excerpt) Jake Blom, CEO of the famous IT company BlomBlock, praised it lavishly, calling O'Connor Burger “a revolution in hamburgers,” while food reviewer PartyNight, an A-Tuber, said, “I can say without exaggeration that O'Connor Burger is the best burger I’ve ever eaten. I’m told the main branch is in New York, and if you’re a New Yorker, you should run there immediately and try it.”
Shawn O'Connor, like so many others, had left his hometown and come to Silicon Valley chasing the dream of success as a developer.
But his business had failed, and he’d reached the point where he was even worrying about rent.
So, until he found his next startup idea, he decided to sell the O'Connor Burger he’d always eaten at home and took to the road with a food truck.
Many developers in Silicon Valley related to that story.
(continued)
ps. This reporter is Shawn O'Connor’s younger sister, and also the daughter of Carl O'Connor, owner of O'Connor Pub.
I met the person who had written the article.
“Nicely done. The photos look delicious too.”
She shook her head vigorously.
“O'Connor Pub is in chaos now too. Do you know that New Yorkers are swarming the place and protesting outside, demanding burgers?”
“Really?”
“Dad’s been sighing that this is going to drive away the regulars. What exactly did you do behind the scenes?”
“Behind the scenes? I didn’t do anything.”
Trish looked at me with a suspicious expression.
“Really?”
“Really.”
I gave a small laugh and asked, “So what brings you here?”
“I came on assignment for an interview.”
“Oh! A local New York online paper sending you all the way to California.”
Trish put both hands on her hips.
“What’s that supposed to mean? We’re doing incredibly well these days.”
“Fair enough. You’ve been breaking so many big stories.”
When people heard “New York newspaper,” they usually thought of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times.
When they first heard the name Wall Street Times, many people laughed and called it a knockoff. But recently, the name WST had come up more often than WSJ or NYT in public conversation.
The reason was simple: it had been breaking one exclusive after another, starting with the Thomas Motors scandal.
By now, just about everyone knew the name WST.
“Shouldn’t you at least buy a meal for the person who gave you the tip?”
Trish looked exasperated.
“Wow. The rich really do get more outrageous. Still, since I do need a favor, I’ll buy you lunch.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Could I get an interview with Snow Crash?”
“Exclusively?”
“That would be great.”
After the Blackwood incident, interview requests had been flooding in from everywhere. Interest from both companies and the public had surged as well.
WST keeping its momentum would help me with everything I planned to do next, wouldn’t it?
“All right. I’ll talk to Syd for you.”
“Ah! Thank you. I won’t forget this.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
I met the Blue Wagon founders.
Shawn and Fernando looked nearly wrecked. Their eyes were hollow, and their whole bodies seemed to sag with exhaustion. This was what running a business did to you.
“Now that you’ve done it yourself, what do you think? Do you see the potential for a franchise?”
Fernando spoke first.
“But if we move too fast, won’t quality control become difficult? I think we should secure the ingredient production facilities, distribution network, and warehouses first, then move forward in step with that.”
“Exactly. I don’t intend to rush it either.”
So he’d already been thinking about that part too.
O'Connor Burger’s rise wasn’t due only to Shawn O'Connor. Fernando Domingo had played an enormous role as well.
Cooking in one store and cooking the same thing in a hundred stores were completely different problems.
On top of that, ingredients weren’t something you could simply mass-produce in a factory, so quantity and quality had to be managed rigorously regardless of season or harvest.
Providing the exact same taste anywhere in the world was no easy task.
How many restaurants had been called famous spots, only to go under after recklessly expanding their branches?
That was why franchising required an exceptional manager.
Fernando Domingo was the one who could do that.
The McDonald brothers created McDonald’s, but it was Ray Kroc who turned it into a franchise. Without him, McDonald’s would probably have remained just a well-known local burger joint.
Starbucks too, without Howard Schultz, would never have spread coffee culture across the world; it would have stayed just another neighborhood café.
Fernando asked, “Are you really planning to grow O'Connor Burger into a franchise?”
“Yes. I’ll invest five million dollars first. Continue Capital plans to acquire an additional 55 percent stake and secure a total of 70 percent. If you have no objections, I’ll have the contract proceed as is.”
Shawn and Fernando couldn’t hide their shock.
It was no wonder. In an instant, Shawn had gone from a failed startup founder to the president of a company with five million dollars in capital.
Shawn O'Connor asked, unable to believe it. “Why are you investing such a huge amount?”
“Because O'Connor Burger is delicious. That burger is worth it.”
“E-even so, you could’ve just copied it. The recipe isn’t that complicated.”
If someone set out to copy it, there was no guarantee they couldn’t reproduce the same taste.
But…
“No matter how similar the taste is, that still wouldn’t be O'Connor Burger.”
Even two bags made from the same leather, in the same shape, would differ in price by more than tenfold depending on whether a luxury brand logo was stamped on them.
A brand was identity.
If they couldn’t use the name O'Connor Burger, then this burger would never truly succeed.
“Mr. Domingo, prepare the first franchise branch and the distribution network. In the meantime, Mr. O'Connor, take the food truck and go around the San Francisco and LA areas selling burgers.”
With the fame they had now, people would flock no matter where they went. And if Hollywood stars ate it and posted it on social media, it would become even more famous.